SubscribeHillary Unveils $110B A Yr “Free” Health Care
From an ecstatic Associated Press:
Clinton unveils health care plan
By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press Writer
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is unveiling a sweeping health care proposal Monday that would require everyone to carry health insurance and offer federal subsidies to help reduce the cost of coverage.
Fulfilling a pledge to bring health care to all, Clinton’s “American Health Choices Plan” has a price tag of about $110 billion per year. It represents her first major effort to achieve universal health coverage since 1994, when the plan she authored during her husband’s first term collapsed.
“It is long past time that Americans and the richest of all countries realize that health care is a right and not a privilege,” Clinton said at a labor forum in Chicago. “And that goes especially for people who work hard every single day.”
The former first lady says she has learned from the 1990s experience, which almost derailed Bill Clinton’s presidency and helped put Republicans in control of Congress for years to come. Aides say she has jettisoned the complexity and uncertainty of the last effort in favor of a plan that stresses simplicity, cost control and consumer choice.
The centerpiece of Clinton’s plan is the so-called “individual mandate,” requiring everyone to have health insurance — just as most states require drivers to purchase auto insurance. Rival John Edwards has also offered a plan that includes an individual mandate, while the proposal outlined by Barack Obama does not…
Aides said Clinton believes that an individual mandate is the only way to achieve health care for all. A key component of her plan would be a federal tax subsidy to help individuals pay for coverage.
Clinton’s plan builds on the existing employer-based system of coverage. People who receive insurance through the workplace could continue to do so; businesses, in turn, would be required to offer insurance to employees, or contribute to a government-run pool that would help pay for those not covered. Clinton would also offer a tax subsidy to small businesses to help them afford the cost of providing coverage to their workers.
For individuals and families who are not covered by employers or whose employer-based coverage is inadequate, Clinton would offer expanded versions of two existing government programs: Medicare, and the health insurance plan currently offered to federal employees. Consumers could choose between either government-run program, but aides stress that no new federal bureaucracy would be created under the Clinton plan.
Aides said Clinton will propose several specific measures to pay for her plan, including an end to some of the Bush-era tax cuts for people making more than $250,000 per year…
Clinton is also expected to stress several cost-saving measures to help pay for universal coverage. She’s already recommended several such proposals, such as computerized medical record-keeping and a reduction in federal overpayments to hospitals and health maintenance organizations. She would also promote wellness and disease prevention as a way to reduce costs…
How hilarious.
But not as hilarious as this passage from the earlier article:
Clinton is also expected to stress several cost-saving measures to help pay for universal coverage. She’s already recommended several such proposals, such as computerized medical record-keeping and a reduction in federal overpayments to hospitals and health maintenance organizations. She would also promote wellness and disease prevention as a way to reduce costs.
Oh yeah, that will work.
But notice that this isn’t from the Clinton announcement. The AP felt they had to add these to make her plan more credible.
37 Responses to “Hillary Unveils $110B A Yr “Free” Health Care”
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September 17th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
$110 billion, divided by 300 million people, that’s about $370 per person per year. That won’t even be enough to cover the cost of the new government administrators (paper pushers) that will be employed to attempt to organise it all. Then you have to add the actual costs of the medical side as well. Try an amount over 30 times this. And she wants to FORCE us to have health coverage??
Yet another day goes by and I find another reason to dislike her even more. Amazing!
September 17th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
DGA…..now don’t be confusing the issue with simple facts here…..
You’re spot on about the admin cost. For example, I have to get a blood test once a week to check my clotting factor. The blood lab bills Tri-Care $8.23 for the test and Tri-Care pays them $4.61 under allowable charges. By the time this goes through all the accounting and administration, I’ll bet the actual costs are at least $200. I don’t pay anything but my annual premium.
September 17th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
on his Harley
September 17th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
My recent experience with Government Healthcare - father of my wife’s children on his Harley collected the front end of a truck. Flight for Life got him to the regional hospital where Norman Hsu was treated. Legs shattered, femur and tibias. One ulna. Shattered (L) hip. Terrible contusions and lacerations. His insurance is Medicare. And therein lies his death.
He was rushed into surgery with the on-call Orthopedic surgeon and between the surgeon and the anesthesiologists did not receive blood thinners necessary to prevent blood clots reaching his brain. This is critical in orthopedic surgeries. Second day in St Mary’s he stroked out. At first they tried to pass it off as slow recovery from surgery, then as maybe a mild stroke and after five days admitted to a major stroke. And then another.
It’s impossible to recover from surgery if you don’t get out of bed. Stroked out, he couldn’t use one side of his body. His recovery is in jeopardy. Pneumonia set in. Now he’s really screwed. Pneumonia, major stroke and serious orthopedic surgery. His care? Minimal at best. The hospital kept asking visitors when they, or any family could take him home. This is a guy completely wired to a $100,000 bed, intubated, and on rigorous courses of antibiotics and the Discharge people are stopping anybody they can going in or coming out of his room to ask … can you take him home, now?
His care deteriorated. At times it would take an entire shift to get his bowel messes cleaned up. Sometimes his Foley catheter bag was full to bursting. He’d lie there for hours in his own … etc etc. And this is a big hospital. After the stroke he couldn’t speak or swallow and my hand to God, a priest kept coming by and putting communion in his mouth, choking him. I am not making that up. Twice, before the nursing staff realized why he was having choking fits.
Then comes the untreatable staph infection. On the day the hospital transferred him to a secondary facility for ‘rehabilitation’ his daughter is consulting finally with one of his doctors (she didn’t get to meet any of them for nearly a month … no returned phone calls, nothing) about being moved to another floor, even as the Discharge office is shuffling him out the door to another facility. None of his doctors knew the Discharge peope were getting rid of him. He took the staph infection and double pneumonia with him, and in short order the staph spread on the wing of the facility where he was dumped … and they promptly shipped him back to St Mary’s. To ICU. Where they barely managed to save him. All the while Discharge asking “when are you going to take him home?” to children who live on the East Coast.
This is a five month saga of government paid healthcare …. doctors unavailable to be consulted … doctors often out of touch for up to two weeks … nursing staff who cannot write a simple sentence correctly … misread Orders … misplaced orders … wrong medications …. a chart that plainly reads NO MORPHINE and of course he was being prescribed morphine derivatives for pain …. the list I can produce is terrifying and frankly overwhelming in its size, and quite unbelievable if you weren’t there … and all the while Discharge finagling to get rid of him because …. Medicare won’t pay for his stay unless he can do three hours of Rehab every day. Since he was stroked out, he couldn’t do three hours of rehab. Ipso facto. He had to go. Forget that the system caused him to be unable to rehab. That was beside the point. They caused the stroke, so he no longer fits the profile, he has to go.
This ends with the man dead in a hospice in Denver, after shipping him to the only secondary facility in Colorado that would take him. A man with double pneumonia and untreatable staph was driven across two alpine passes, both above ten thousand feet by ambulance crews who had to fight to keep him breathing the whole way. And the new facility promptly shipped him to Lutheran in Denver where he died in their hospice the next day from respiratory failure.
Because he had government financed healthcare.
This is a true story. I just witnessed it. Watched them kill him by arguing over dollars, rules and bureaucracy, and no one taking his life seriously.
September 17th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Jack…..thanks for sharing that with everyone here because it illustrates the basic problem with government heath care…..the providers have no vested interest in the recipients continued longevity .
I feel the same way about using military medical facilities after military retirement. Although I don’t think they would intentionally do anything to hasten your demise, I do believe they will kill you by omission. I very strongly advise any military retirees I speak with to pay the money for Tri-Care and select your own medical professional in the open civilian market instead of using the military facilities. To begin with, in time of war, the retiree will always be last priority there, and that’s as it should be. I could not be more happy with our medical care providers and the care and service we receive. I actually think they go overboard at times.
September 17th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
“It is long past time that Americans and the richest of all countries realize that health care is a right and not a privilege,” Clinton said at a labor forum in Chicago. “And that goes especially for people who work hard every single day.”
I think Jefferson said it best when we wrote, “All men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain rights. Among these are the rights to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and health care.” Oh, wait . . . .
September 17th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
Ya gotta LOVE the Clintons, THE MORE YOU SPEND THE MORE YOU SAVE, on beauracrats that is.
September 17th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
OK, I’m a mite confused here, after listening to GetBackJack and WI’s experiences.
Am I to understand that the level of care or competence varies depending on who funds the hospital or the staff (including doctors)?
I’m not doubting what you guys say, I just find it astounding to think -if I’m reading you guys correctly- that whatever medical plan you pay for will make any difference in the -again- competence of the medical staff.
Believe me, as a Canuck I’m no fan of socialized health care (my doctor would confirm that -if I had one), I’m just surprised at what I’m reading here.
September 17th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
I’ll attempt to give you a short primer DW.
Private doctors and hospitals in the U. S. can pick and choose which insurance plans they accept. If they accept a particular plan, they also agree to a schedule of fees for services rendered. So if a particular insurance coverage requires a co-pay of say $15 by the patient, then the facility can only collect the $15 plus the agreed schedule of fees amount for the service provided. Tricare, which is my carrier, is only available to retired military and really is one of the lowest paying policies. But if a doctor, hospital or other facility accepts it, they are limited in what the collect to the co-pay, plus the schedule of payments. Same with Medicare for those over 65 years old. It pays only a portion of the normal fees, and thus, some facilities refuse medicare patients. I’m not sure who the “gold standard” payers are but probably blue cross/blue shield (thats a wild ass guess).
Being retired military, I can choose not to pay Tricare premiums and use a military medical facility free of charge. Not a good thing. No vested interest in my longevity. Same with medicare, if you don’t have some supplemental insurance, you aren’t going to get the same level of service. Bottom line is you get what you pay for. Never more, sometimes less. Hope that clears it up for you my friend. Still beats the hell out of the free stuff in Canada. Free is ALWAYS worth what you pay for it…..
September 17th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
DW - Military Health care is a crap shoot - saw a guy die (and believe me the ‘explanation’ was a hoot) in an ER waiting room heart attack) - same hospital that I was forced to explain to the ER Head as to why I was bringing my young daughter to the ER for medical treatment. This was a lower income/education area and I guess the locals found it necessary to put some excitement into their day by sitting at the hospital all day and tying up pediatric appointments and slowing the pharmacy down to a stand still for asprin. In reality it was a crappy assignment and those who went there weren’t the cream of the crop - and the management of the hospital showed it. I’ve also been to Letterman (SanFran) in and out in less time (for a speech therapist assesment) in less time than it took me to find a parking space (rows of VIP parking, you know). And Ft. Hood ER is the reason we still have our youngest son. I can’t find a Dr. worth wasting the time for locally who will take Tricare (as with Medicare - the less they can pay out, the better) so I don’t get all the ‘tests’ they claim I should have as I can’t drive the hour + to the nearest MTF (Military Treatment Facility) which as WI said - we’d be bottom of the list anyway - being retired. I still have to say in 29+ years the majority of the doctors/hospitals were fine or better. Every system has it’s problems. Here my hubby has no real complaints about the VA (yet).
Inconsistancy - it is all you will get with government run healthcare. And it isn’t necessary - if the Congresscritters would get out of the system (regulations), if the insurance companies weren’t making medical decisions, if the legal system weren’t pandering to the legal lotto of medical lawsuits and if the Congresscritters would deport the 12 to 20 million illegals - our system would go back to being #1 and affordable.
Her ability to make the $110billion sound like her ‘end tax cuts to the rich’ would cover it and then (since it wouldn’t even begin too) throw in tax credits to ‘cover it’ - should have everyone scratching their heads as to how can it ever be considered ‘free’ to anyone - Ever.
BTW - don’t forget auto insurance is ‘Mandatory’ but I know a heck of a lot of people who drive without it. . .most of them illegal aliens.
September 17th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
BTW - don’t forget these wonderful Congresscritters who just want to help you - voted themselves a private scam, oops plan and will also insure thus (they don’t have to be in a universal healthcare system) after they force all of us to take whatever scam, oops plan they come up with. . .
So once again - what is so ‘free’ and ‘universal’ about this?
September 17th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
WI, wardmama,
Thanks for the insights. Still a bit confusing. Is this a case of “talent goes where the money is ?”
If so, whatever happened to the hippocratic oath ?
Here’s what we’re fighting for in Canada:
We have so-called “universal health care”. And yes, it’s free, but you’ll die of whatever ails you before you get treated for it.
So every once in a while, a private -for profit- clinic springs up. They invariably make a killing. People are quite willing to pay extra to avoid dying on a waiting list (or to see their kids suffering while on a waiting list -whatever).
This is bad (sez the lefties). This is American style health care creeping up on us. Better that we die on waiting lists than be like the Americans. Private clinics get threatened and harassed out of business by the government. The same government officials usually go to private clinics for their health care (often in the US).
So what we (sensible people) are fighting for is a hybrid system where you can have both government and private clinics. That way, people who can’t afford private care will stil have an option, but people who can will not have to wait forever and a day for care (with the added benefit of lightening the waiting list for the government hospitals).
No can do. Too American.
People…
September 17th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
You aren’t confused DW…..you pretty much have it nailed. Those of us with jobs who pay the freight for our medical insurance get service. Some insurance is better than others, so is medical care. The hypocratic oath? Well, doctors and nurses and other medical people have to make a living. They, for the most part, aren’t the rich country club set as in days of old. The lawyers took care of that. Some specialties (hollywierd plastic surgeons) are wealthy but for the most part, they are just trying to eek out a living like the rest of us. I can have free medical care (because of my retired military status), but I know what free is worth. No thanks.
The reality of course, in spite of what shillary and the other “free lunch” crowd wants everyone to believe, is that everyone in America has medical care, and if they can’t afford it, free medical care. All they have to do is go to any emergency room and they will be taken care of…..by law. And that’s what’s bankrupting the system. Illegal? No problemo. Homeless drug addict? No sweat. General run of the mill lazy unemployed shit head? You got it man. We will take care of you because of our bleeding freaking hearts. /sarc
Still beats the Canadian system, the U. K. System and any other socialized system in the world.
September 17th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
I work in a pharmacy in NY as a pharmacy intern and I have to say insurance billing is horrible half the time, when its the medicare program its a crapshoot on whether its a good day or bad day for accepting the claims we put through. Medicaid (for the low income people) is usually a nightmare to process unless its a simple antibiotic or insulin for people. Some patients are crabby and others are nice, it seems like if they are on medicaid they are often nasty to you complain about how we aren’t going fast enough and their medications cost too much. Their total copay is like three dollars for this bag of medication that another patient with private insurance pays 50 or 60 dollars a month for in co-pays. Of course it doesn’t help that the medicaid folks coming for the diabetes medications are buy a shopping basket full of chocolate and candy and then need more meds. Then after buying all this they can refuse co-pays and we have to give them the meds anyways. Got to love goverment health care, all is one giant screw up.
I also wonder under Hillary if this case I heard about would come true.
A woman walks into a pharmacy and has a stack of prescriptions for $2000 a month fertility treatments and is on welfare and medicaid with two children already and wonders why the goverment is rejecting the claim but pays for her husbands couple of viagra a month.
The goal of public health and the goverment is to control the number of unwanted pregnancies and get people off welfare, birth control is free through the goverment but not expensive treatments to get another kid we have to pay for out of tax payers dollars.
September 17th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
DW, it is exactly a case of talent going where the money is. Why would a good doctor who pulls in plenty of patients on his/her own, who are backed by good insurance companies that will pay the actual full amount, and paid on time, accept patients from Medical, which for some reason sets the rates for itself, (at least in California)? My mother works for an optometrist who for a short while accepted Medical patients, and she says it was a big deal to try to get the payments in any reasonable amount of time, and without errors.
I’ve taken my kids to pediatricians who did accept medical, and those who didn’t. Those who did accept it were the doctors that had me wait absurdly long times, and then came in and talked to like I’m an idiot, and worst of all, didn’t really listen. They are definitely the inferior doctors. (Usually, anyway.)
September 17th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
I think you mean Medicaid, not Medical don’t you?
September 17th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
You DONT want polticians playing doctor and billing agents. Sure way to a short life!
September 17th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
110 Billion my ass. More like 110 Trillion!!!!
September 17th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Hillary is going to make my life less enjoyable, because I cannot afford to pay for everyone else’s free health care. There has to be a way to show the public that it ISNT FREE!!!! it only gives free health care to “those who qualify”. Lets see now….thirty million illegals qualify…I dont. 25% of the country is poor, they qualify…I dont. The people who know how to scam the hell out of a system qualify….I still dont. I make too much to qualify….and I dont make near enough to afford my own “free care”. The sad part of this crap is….the very people who Hillary is going to use to fund her socialist agenda will be denied any of it’s offerings…..sixty five per cent of this country will be unable to “qualify”….but will be expected to pay the obscene tax rates this will cause.
God….just think of it. Some smarmy do nothing bureaucrat will sit at the desk, shake their heads slowly, and condemn me to a slow agonizing death because I “dont qualify” for the operation that could save my life. I am screwed. Hillary had better hope to Allah that I dont find out I am terminal. Well, she still has to get elected, and this is one hot button issue that wont go away. So many people remember “hillarycare” and it’s ensuing debacle of doom. They wont let it happen…..nobody can afford free health care. It doesnt work, it never has, it never will.
The only way I would even partially agree is if everyone on every government payroll had to use the very same criteria that I had to use. Congress too….all of them. It is easy as hell to give me something I cant use, cant afford and dont need when your lazy ass is covered by literally EVERYTHING for free…for life. So shut the fck up, and unless you are willing to give up every last perk you have, Senator, then dont expect the rest of us to try to live a sub standard life so you can give non Americans free health care for their votes. God, there I go….pissed off again. I gotta go slam my winky in the car trunk….
September 17th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
The hospital decided what medical care he would receive. Decided which doctors would treat and advise. Decided on what medicines and procedures were allowed under Government rules. This man put his faith in Medicare and swore he would be taken care of by the government if anything should happen to him. Well … he was taken care of by a government program …. they took care of him by essentially giving him the minimal of care and attention, and then shuffled him off as fast as possible to someone else when he no longer qualified under Medicare rules. He didn’t qualify because he couldn’t physically manage three hours of rehab every day … because the lousy doctors assigned by the Medicare-managed strategy did not give him anti-clotting meds and he stroked out. Lost the use of one side, his voice, ability to swallow and lost all sense of self and time/space. Let alone the injuries suffered in his accident.
Yes. That’s exactly what happened. He was a ‘government case’. Not a regular patient. Let alone a patient who could pay his own way with his care managed by doctors who have Hospital Privileges. Therein lies an enormous gulf.
I don’t know how to solve this problem since the government fiddling with price/wage controls started this thing rolling downhill around 1970, when I paid for my own tonsilectomy at age 18, with my own check …. $600 and change. Like the days when a man waiting tables could put kids through college if he and his wife were frugal and hard working. Today you can’t pay for college unless you’re made of money because … the government fiddled with the paradigm until only a debtor society remains. Medical care is the same. If you can pay the real costs … you can have outstanding medical care. Care so good Elizabeth Taylor is still with us despite God knows what medical horrors she’s been through. And Keith Richards …. the man ought to be dead but there he remains because of medical care he can pay for.
My acquaintance trusted in the government. And he got government care. Which is about the same as government housing, government food subsidies and government child care.
And he is dead from their care.
When its government money, no one’s in charge, and no one is responsible. The least qualified among us belly up to government programs where the best among us can still work the free market charging what the market will bear. The government has, essentially, recolutionized America. We were a free market society. Now we’re a society of Credit or Privilege.
That’s the point you need to remember. Like the Tragedy Of The Commons if no one is held responsible, it falls to lowest possible level.
September 17th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
” I gotta go slam my winky in the car trunk….”
Slam Akmeds winkey in the cabs trunk, And head up the interstate at 120 miles an hour.
And please record his last prayer for prosperity…..
September 17th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
WI, In California they call it MediCal. I should have said Medicaid because everybody knows what that is, but I was just writing without thinking about that. Thanks for pointing it out.
September 17th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Just didn’t want to confuse DW….Canuck you know….lol.
September 17th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
I agree with everything you said Jack. That’s why I don’t take advantage of the “free” medical care I’m eligible for by virture of being retired military. I once told my wife that if I needed an emergency admittance to a hospital and she allowed me to be taken to a military facility, I’d get off my death bed and strangle her.
September 17th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
sj, you nailed it. our hugely rising costs of health care in america can begin to be reined and reduced by rounding up and evicting the hordes of uninsured illegal alien deadbeats and their anchor babies swamping the u.s.a’s public hospitals and emergency care facilities. every starry-eyed clueless liberal idiotic let’s-spend-someone-else’s-money-on-the-”disadvantaged”-so-they-will-love-us donk should be forced to endlessly watch the very telling “star trek” episode “the trouble with tribbles”. the last time i checked, expatriate americans are not bankrupting any 3rd world hospitals by skipping out on medical treatment bills the way invaders are gouging us. as for the magical “hillarycare” $110 billion figure, was someone smoking the crack pipe before coming up with it?
September 17th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Just didn’t want to confuse DW….Canuck you know….lol.
Grrr…!
Lucky I have a soft spot for vets :-)
lol.
September 17th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Only cause we love you DW…..:=)
September 17th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
One question comes to mind for Ms Rodham. If the unwashed masses are clamoring for your bureaucrat run health care system, why haven’t you already enacted this legislation as part of your stellar Senatorial career?
BTW - Notice the absence of tort reform in Shrillary’s plan, which is essential to improve our health care system. Trial lawyers own the Democrat party.
September 18th, 2007 at 1:01 am
First and last, this isn’t about health, it’s about Hillary’s WEALTH!!!!! Power also, but foremost the wealth! Plain and simple.
September 18th, 2007 at 2:57 am
The old American system “still beats the Canadian system, the U. K. System and any other socialized system in the world.”
Have any of you looked at the Japanese system? Take a good look at it.
1. You pay a yearly premium of about $400 to $1200 per person per year, and that amount is based on how much you “used” in the previous two years. If you are a healthy person, your rate is low; you be a sicky and you pay more.
2. This covers 70% of all medical costs, dental, perscriptions, etc that are not classed as “elective.”
3. You can get a private plicy to cover the remaining 30%, also at a resonable rate because;
4. There are effectively no TORT cases in Japan in referance to malpractice. Why? Japanese realize that doctors are not going to intentionaly set out to harm their patients. Accidents happen like anywhere else but the solution is to spot the cause of the mistake and correct it, not legally punish the doctor by rewarding the injured and his lawyer (how was he hurt, BTW?) with a multi-million cash pay-off.
No TORTs, no need for the additional 70% of your hospital bill that is directly sposering TORT and it’s defences.
Hospital care in Japan compares with US in quality, but costs 30% what it does in America. Even less.
A simple root-canal on a wisdom tooth costs total of $150 (70% covered, your cost $45)
A CAT scan, $350. MRI; $450. Fullblod and urin work up lab fee; $130, your cost $39.
Doctors still earn $100,000 + per year. They drive Benzes and have nice houses. They are respected. You don’t wait in line. Old people are healthy because being healthy saves you premium money.
Your options are not just “As is, Shrillery Care, or Canadia Care.”
Thailand has a good system, too but Japan’s is tops.
I should know, I have been enjoying it for 18 years. I am one of the expats that isn’t breaking the back of my host country. But I am taking care of my health, so I stay in the low-premium bracket.
“It is long past time that Americans and the richest of all countries realize that health care is a right and not a privilege,” Clinton said.
No, staying healthy is an obligation, and if you wreck your Harley, your fault or not, you just might die. No one forced you to drive a Harley. CHOICE is your privilege.
Choose a Harley, you may suffer. Elect Hillery you all suffer.
September 18th, 2007 at 4:22 am
endzone….good thing you live there! Hillary would have you “vincefostered” in no time flat to keep that from getting out! Btw…..I agree with you 100%. Tort lawyers and greedy families are the main cause of our astronomical health care. Correct them, and Hillarycare becomes unnecessary, then rein in the drug companies obscene profit margins, down goes health care again.
Rewarding people for staying healthy? Here? Again, it’s a good thing you are there endzone, lawyers would sue you silly for that here. There is no money in good health.
September 18th, 2007 at 4:48 am
Gee, SJH…I don’t think ANYone has ever agreed 100% with me, before. Are you single?
Ha ha!
I used to be a big guy, you know back when I lived in USA. 6 feet tall, 190 pounds and I’m built like RanXerox.
I have not changed but when I go back…I am one of the little people!
Americans have two serious challenges to health; themselves and their legal system.
I fear for you, because you can change the first by great will-power only.
The second…great “wont” power, as in, “we wont put up with this any longer!” and that means revolution…internal at least.
People in the orient follow you, but I hope not down that dark road.
September 18th, 2007 at 4:57 am
People in the orient follow you, but I hope not down that dark road.
It will most likely come to that EZK…..because people have come to the realization that they are being used like a crack whore by the system. It can easily be fixed, but since so many people need the existing system for their wealth it wont happen in my lifetime.
People like Hillary trumpet what MoveOn.org tells her to…..she is as capable of independent thought as Ahmedinejad. The goal of universal health care is impossible to attain, mainly because anything controlled by the government is destined to fail from the start. crap, I am late for work…..
If people were serious about true health care for all…..they would make it happen by eliminating the impediments to it….tort lawyers, fraud, kickbacks, payoffs, and obscene profit margins. lawyers are the main culprit. Stop them, and save immediately.
September 18th, 2007 at 8:32 am
I worked with a gentleman from China that explained their heathcare. You keep a doctor on retainer, every month you go in for a check up and get your prescription if you need one (usually herbal supplements and/or vitamins). Apparently if you you become ill and have to have a medical procedure, it comes out of the doctors retainer fees that a person has already paid. He said they prescribe a lot of Ma Huang as it is excellent for allergies, cold, fatigue, etc.
Texas has Tort Reform. Pres. Bush got that passed back in 1995 when he was our Governor. It’s driving the ACLU crazy though, and they are actively campaigning to have Tort Reform reversed. My brother in law was a victim of a crime and a lawyer, (who did not take his case), mailed him a detailed talking point sheet asking him to help them overturn Tort reform. Rude, huh?
September 18th, 2007 at 11:39 am
Simple question for Hillary: If health care is a right why must it be forced on everyone? I have a right to own a gun so I can own one or not. I have a right to free speech so I can say any stupid thing I want to or just keep my mouth shut. I have the right to refuse a warrant less search and seizure or I can let the cops in. How does one create a right by eliminating freedom?
Don’t take this as a plug for Fred Thompson but he said the other day referring to universal health care, “a government that can do everything for you can do anything to you!”
September 18th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Not only does shillary want to make it a mandatory right, silky pony edwards wants to make it mandatory you use it, requiring people to get physicals once a year, all woman required to get mammograms every year, all men required to get finger waves, etc, etc, etc. Now imagine every person in America running to the doctors office once a year for exams that aren’t necessary but once every 2 or 3 or 5 years. Who the hell is going to have time to take care of the sick people? Oh, and you do realize every time you walk through the door of a medical facility you’re exposing yourself to all forms of unknown germs, bacteria, viruses etc. My theory is stay away…..there’s too many damn sick people there.
The bottom line is a giant bureaucracy generating tens of billions of dollars for the bureaucrats and their minions, poor health care for everyone and the removal of any semblance of freedom of choice. That’s one “right” I’d just as soon not have thank you.
September 21st, 2007 at 8:25 am
“It is long past time that Americans and the richest of all countries realize that health care is a right and not a privilege,” Clinton said at a labor forum in Chicago. “And that goes especially for people who work hard every single day.”
Not that Hillary would ever let this enter her brain, but there is a good reason America is the richest of all countries: we’re free to spend our money on whatever we want. If some poor, single mother of three would rather buy a new car (over a used one) and designer jeans (over Wal Mart brand) than buy health insurance for her kids, that is her right. We who work for a living and give most of the money we earn (without the choice to do so) to the government and to health insurance also have the right to not have to subsidize other’s immaturity and frivolous spending.
Libs always tout the working poor as their examples. I can sympathize with people who work hard and don’t make beans because I’ve been there. But I never expected or demanded that the government solve my problems for me. And everyone knows most of the recipients of such a plan would be the people whose complete lives are already subsidized by working people. Once even health care is provided by the taxpayers, why would anyone even bother being “working poor” anymore? Who would be dumb enough to work when EVERYTHING is given to you? And is there a point at which such leaches say “okay, we’ve got enough”? Of course not.
As it is now, people work to get ahead in life someday. Will they make minimum wage their entire lives? Of course not. They know hard work still gets you somewhere eventually. It’s not a guarantee of a nice comfortable life, but there are no guarantees in life are there? The founding fathers should have put more basic human rights into the constitution like the right to a new car, the right to keep and bear sex slaves, the right to take the law into your own hands. Stuff like that.
Let’s get some freaking personal responsibility folks, damn!
Suggested slogan for Fred Thompson’s presidential run: “America, go get yours!”